by Bill LaBrie | Mar 16, 2016 | Essays
Looking a bit like a beleaguered bathroom fixture salesman after his latest fall off the wagon at a roadside tavern somewhere in Iowa, Dick Valentine took the stage at the Valley Bar in Phoenix Tuesday evening. A devoted audience of 200 or so cheered their rumpled...
by Bill LaBrie | Dec 16, 2015 | Essays
I was born old. You know the thing old guys say to young women to try to get them in bed? “You have an old soul.” Actually, that might be me. I’m the one with an old soul. I think it’s rarely some 22 year-old nailtech in a bikini who’s...
by Bill LaBrie | Aug 3, 2015 | Essays
How to live like a New Yorker no matter where you live: 1. Quintuple your rent, unless you are living in San Francisco. If you live in San Francisco, cut your rent by 20%. Tell your landlord it’s for an experiment. Also, isolate yourself to only one room of your...
by Bill LaBrie | May 17, 2015 | Essays
Enough of movies based on video games! I want one based on an old favorite. Open with a scene of a dirty boy drawing a grid in the dirt. Distant bongo drums. A cymbal swells. Tense shot of the boy’s eyes. With the grid drawn, he starts with an O in the...
by Bill LaBrie | May 12, 2015 | Essays
Sometimes I think America’s problems all get back to the loss of the Dodge brand used on trucks. Like millions of other Americans, I grew up with the confidence that Dodge trucks were RAM tough! It was the spiritual basis of my youth in west Phoenix — a...
